After receiving a post card from the smallest post office in the USA (Ochopee, Florida), I’m fascinated with extreme post offices, either size or location.
Today I learned about the post office on Little Diomede Island, Alaska (USA). Little Diomede is also called “Yesterday Island” because it sits just barely on one side of the international date line. Big Diomede Island (“Tomorrow Island”), owned by Russia, sits on the other side of the date line only 2.4 miles (3.8 km) away. There’s no post office or people on Big Diomede Island, but there is a crashed airplane that you can see clearly on Google Earth.
Anyway, I’m going to send a postcard to this Little Island at the End of Time and see if I can collect a postmark.
This reminds some of the blog posts featured on the website. I think there was a post office underwater somewhere? Maybe I’m delusional.
Definitely will take a look at it when I’m on the computer because this is very cool. Especially nowadays when post offices are being replaced by shops.
There’s definitely an underwater post office, and one in a tree, and one on top of a mountain peak… I think I remember them all from blog posts. I thought we had a Forum thread about them but couldn’t find it. If someone does find it maybe they can relocate my post.
There is also the most Northern post office (80°19’ N 52°48’ E) recently reopened in the Nature reserve park ‘Russian arctics’ [I’m not sure they have a website in English - http://www.rus-arc.ru/] - it’s in the restored historical (1930s) Arctic scientific research base in Tikhaya (=Quiet) Bay on Hooker Island, Franz Josef Land archipelago. It’s purely for tourists on cruise ships (icebreakers, I mean ), but technically you can send something there, I guess. The zip-code is 163110.
UPD1: I found the news piece with the photos: Post started to work in 2014
UPD2: Googled more, there is even more Northern one, but on Heiss island there, zip code is “Arkhangelsk 163100”, but unsure whether it works now, since the first one is in the more popular touristic destination
Keep in mind that I don’t even know if they have an interesting or unusual postmark. I’m just keen on the idea of a little post office in a very unique location.
Non-US Postcrossers need a US Global Forever stamp on the postcard that they want postmarked and returned. (You can also use a combination of US Forever stamps to equal the global postage ($1.30 now), but putting that many stamps on will obscure the postmark.)
Postmaster
Attn: Postmark Request
Little Diomede Island Post Office
12 STEPPING STONE WAY
LITTLE DIOMEDE, AK 99762-9803
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Are you familiar with the post office located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon that services the Havasupai Indian Reservation? It’s the only mail route that uses mules.
This sounds interesting, are you writing on the postcard you want sent back and then mailing in an envelope? Why does it require a global stamp, and is that both ways?
They likely don’t have a unique postmark but if it anything like the rest of the other offices for sure it will be round with the city state zip and the date as well as the letters USPS. Let us know how it looks when it arrives.
There is a forum thread about “unique” post offices, and there was a recent Postcrossing blog post about the Black Pyramid Post Box (but not a post office.) And in a related note, there’s a post office atop Mount Fuji.
There is an underwater post office and a post office located on a slope of an active volcano
Both offices are in Vanuatu (island nation in the Pacific)
Letters & cards sent via these offices receive special cancellation
Russia’s northernmost post office is located on Hooker island in the Arctic. The office is open only during summer months, it is a popular tourist destinations for cruise-ship passengers in the Arctic.
Tourists can send postcards from the island. All cards receive special cancellation.
Yup. I climbed for hours to get to that post office. They are open only for several weeks during summer. Postal workers take turns to stay on the mountain for 1 or 2 weeks. I heard they use a vehicle (bulldozer?) to bring mail down every weekday. My postcards were delivered in a few days.
They did not open the post office in 2021 due to COVID
This is Japan’s Showa Station Post office in Antarctica.
), but technically you can send something there, I guess. The zip-code is 163110.
